


The Heart Awakens

by dancingloki



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, I love that trope so much, M/M, Multi, Other, SandStormPilot, and it's still completely in-character, and the best thing about The Force Awakens is that the oblivious one could be any one of the three, you know that trope where one member of a relationship has no idea they're dating?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:04:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5621497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingloki/pseuds/dancingloki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A trilogy of shorts featuring one of my very favorite fanfiction/shipping tropes: when one member of a romantic relationship is completely oblivious to its very existence, while the other member (or members as the case may be) are completely convinced that they're dating. Enjoy.</p>
<p>(I would also like to take a moment here to inform you all how COMPLETELY SUPER STOKED I am to be the first person to use this extremely obvious fic title. I got here first and anyone else who does it is a copycat.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lost In Translation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Finn is Bad With Slang

On the day the _Millennium Falcon_ was expected to return, Jess “Testor” Pava—along with what looked like upwards of ninety percent of the rest of the Resistance base—managed to spend the entire day hanging out in the hangar bay. The thruster coil in her X-wing had put off a weird shimmy in her last flight; it wasn’t _technically_ her business to fix those kind of mechanical problems herself, but digging into it gave her a way to look busy.

At least she bothered to make up an excuse to be there. The majority of the people packed into the bay were pretty much just milling around. Not that Testor blamed them; the presence of the legendary Luke Skywalker himself, in person, was a pretty strong draw.

General Organa, in contrast, was nowhere to be seen; but that wasn’t much of a surprise either. She still had an entire resistance to run, after all. The First Order wasn’t going to sit around and wait for a heartwarming family reunion.

In the end, though, as the _Falcon_ swooped delicately into the hangar, perching gracefully in its place of honor, it was the reunion of a different family that stole the show.

Skywalker was there, obviously, and exactly as Testor expected him to be—silent, poised, and emanating a hidden power that wrapped around him like a cloak. His sister made her appearance in the hangar as the ancient Corellian freighter began its final approach, accompanied by Poe Dameron, Testor’s squad leader and best friend, and the much-celebrated Finn, who’d gained many a fast friend in the Resistance when his intel brought down the Starkiller.

The Skywalker siblings’ greeting was as reserved and dignified as one would expect from people of their positions and who’d lived through their experiences. Poe and Finn’s reunion with Rey, newly installed as the Jedi’s Padawan, was…slightly more exuberant.

Rey practically skipped down the _Falcon_ ’s main hatch, oblivious to everything except the former Stormtrooper who darted forward to meet her. Finn swept Rey up in a big bear hug, actually lifting her off her feet. Before her toes even reached the ground again, they were both chattering a parsec a minute, about how glad he was that she was back, about how glad _she_ was that _he_ was out of the medical bay, and each demanding to know what the other had been up to in the time they were separated—without leaving enough time for a single question to be answered.

Poe was right on Finn’s heels, of course, and claimed a fond hug of his own as soon as Finn let Rey go. The two of them hadn’t had a _lot_ of time to get to know each other before Rey left to recover her new teacher, but what time they’d had to talk had left them with a strong sense of kinship.

“I gotta say, we missed you around here,” Poe told Rey cheerfully, once the initial flurry of hellos had died down. He leaned heavily on Finn’s shoulder, grinning broadly. “Especially this guy. Right, buddy?”

Rey’s smile vanished in an instant. She wrapped a possessive hand around Finn’s arm and tugged him away from Poe, who was suddenly on the receiving end of a hostile glare. “What do you mean, _buddy_? Finn’s not—I mean, I thought—Finn, aren’t you _my_ buddy?”

“Woah, woah, hey,” Finn stammered, confused. “Rey, of course we’re buddies, of course we are, but Poe’s my buddy too! I thought you guys liked each other?”

The two pilots eyed each other for a moment; Poe was the one to break the silence.

“I like you fine, Rey,” he said carefully. “BB-8 told me how nice you were to them on Jakku, protecting them. And you’re one hell of a pilot—I could learn something from you.”

Rey blushed at the compliment despite herself. “You’re not so bad either, I hear. The assault on Starkiller was some pretty fancy flying. And…Finn likes you.”

Poe traded a glance with Finn. “So…?”

“So,” she mumbled resentfully, “I guess…I’m okay if Finn’s your buddy too.”

“That’s a great start,” Finn beamed, wrapping one arm around each of their shoulders and pulling them both close. “But you two need to be buddies with each other, too! You two are the best people I’ve ever met. I couldn’t deal with it if you didn’t get along. Not just for my sake—I know you’ll feel the same way about each other that I feel about you if you give it a chance.”

Poe was already grinning down at Rey, leaning comfortably into Finn’s hug. Caught up in the sincerity of Finn’s emotions, she started smiling back.

“Buddies?” she asked, extending a fist in Poe’s direction.

“Buddies,” he confirmed, bumping it gently with his own.

“Buddies!” Finn cheered, pulling them both tight against his chest, and Testor Pava—who was eavesdropping from a respectable distance—felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she realized something terrible.

Still, there was no point in causing a panic until she’d made sure. So she gave it a while, until the initial furor over Skywalker’s arrival died down, and then cornered Finn in the mess hall.

He had a tray piled up with…everything. Apparently, Stormtrooper provisions could be charitably described as “bland”, and Finn seemed determined to make up for lost time by trying out anything that looked remotely tasty.

“You sure you’re not going to pop, eating all that?” she asked him teasingly as she came up, then immediately regretted it when he looked stricken.

“Is it too much?” He looked back and forth between her face and his tray. “I can put some back if I took more than I should, I just didn’t know they were rationing it; nobody told me—”

“I was kidding, Finn, calm down,” she reassured him quickly, slapping him on the shoulder. “You’re fine. Eat as much as you like, and if anybody tries to stop you, I’ll kick their ass.”

That got a smile, and they sat down together at a nearby empty table.

“So how’re things going with Rey and Poe?” she asked as they dug into their meals.

Finn’s excited grunt was muffled by the mouthful of food that was bulging out his cheeks like an Endorian rugger. “S’good,” he finally managed, swallowing. “Everything’s great.”

“That stuff’s probably all new to you, right?” Testor prompted. “You never had a buddy before, when you were in the First Order?”

He shook his head. “I, um…I was kind of a misfit, I guess. I never fit in, y’know? So no, I never had any close friends before.”

 _Mmm hmm_ , thought Testor. _It really sucks to be right all the time._

Out loud, she said: “Well, you better make the most of it,” and nudged him with her foot under the table.

He laughed, and promised he would, and they chatted about other things until their plates were empty and Testor had made up her mind about what to do.

She found Rey and Poe in the hangar bay, perched up on top of Poe’s X-wing. Rey was recounting some very animated story, complete with hand gestures, and Poe was laughing.

“Hey you two,” she called up. “Got a minute?”

“Absolutely,” Poe called back. “What’s up?”

“I was just talking to Finn,” she said, and the identical dopey, lovesick grins on the two pilots’ faces twisted the knife in her gut. This was not going to be a fun conversation.

She took a seat on a nearby storage carton as the duo made their way to the ground. Poe came by the ladder, Rey by a carefree controlled drop that had to be Force-assisted.

“We just had lunch together,” she continued. “Had a nice long chat.”

“He’s great,” Poe gushed, gooey-eyed. “Rey, isn’t he great?”

“He’s pretty great,” she agreed. “Sweet, loyal…”

Poe nodded. “Gentle. And cute. _So_ cute.”

“Sheltered,” Testor supplied. “Sheltered is the word that comes to mind. Like a newborn baby tauntaun.”

She was met with two quizzical looks. “Yeah, I guess he is,” Poe shrugged. “I mean, he can’t even understand BB-8.”

“He’s _learning_ ,” Rey cut in defensively.

“I know, I know, but still. Imagine growing up without knowing even a single word of Astromech. He’s almost _completely_ monolingual, did you know that, Testor? It’s crazy, right?”

“It is pretty crazy, and oddly enough, it was actually language that I wanted to talk to you about,” Testor said quickly. “Language is funny, y’know? Even when we’re all speaking Common, it’s still so easy to have misunderstandings.”

Neither of the other pilots seemed pleased with this turn of the conversation. Poe looked baffled; Rey annoyed.

“Take slang words, for example,” Testor forged on. “In different dialects on different systems, the same word can mean very different things—particularly in an isolated, isolationist society. Like the First Order. So, the same word in the mouth of someone from Jakku or Yavin IV, for example, can be a very different word in the ears of someone—someone like Finn.”

“Where are you going with this?” Rey demanded, scowling.

Testor leaned forward on her knees, sympathetic. “I think you already know. See, the word ‘buddy’ has an archaic meaning from decades ago. In pretty much every star system in the galaxy, its meaning changed over time, to the way we use it today. But in the First Order…”

“In the First Order, they still use it in its old, outdated meaning?” Poe asked, looking very much like he’d rather not hear the answer. Testor nodded.

Rey pushed herself back, folding her arms across her chest. “Which is what?”

“Well…buddy used to be a word for—for a friend. Just friends. A close, platonic friend. And that’s the way the Stormtroopers still use it. I doubt he’s ever heard it used any other way before, so when you call him your buddy, he doesn’t understand what you—Rey, wait!”

But she was already long gone, free-running across the hangar bay and disappearing into a passageway. “No, don’t bother,” Poe sighed, catching at Testor’s sleeve when she made to follow. “You’d never catch her, anyway. She just needs to be alone sometimes. I’ll talk to her after she’s cooled off.”

That made sense, at least. Testor nodded and settled back into her perch on the crate. Poe was leaning back against his X-wing strut, face crestfallen, rubbing one thumb with the other.

“This thing, about Finn…” he said at length, and looked up into her face. “How sure are you, Jess?”

The misery in his eyes nearly broke her heart. She longed to take it all back, tell him it was nothing but a badly thought-out prank, but…no. Testor shook her head. “I’m sure, Poe. I wish I wasn’t. I wouldn’t give up on it, though,” she added quickly. “He worships the ground the two of you walk on, anybody can see that. But you gotta talk to him, pal.”

“You think that’d work?” A note of desperate hope had crept into his voice. Testor shrugged.

“Even if it doesn’t, what else are you going to do? Try to trick him into a relationship in hopes that when he eventually finds out the truth, he’ll be invested enough to stay? Because I can think of at least sixteen different ways that would end badly.”

“That’s not funny, Testor,” Poe growled.

She sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. I just wish I had better advice to give you. Talk to Rey, the two of you go talk to Finn, and find out how he actually feels. No matter what the outcome is, you’ll all be better off if you’re honest with each other.”

Poe ran a hand through his hair, tousling it up. “I guess you’re right,” he said gloomily. “I don’t like it, but you’re right.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, giving him a sad smile. “Just gotta have faith that it’ll work out for the best, I guess. Right, _buddy_?”

That got her a hint of a smile, and a dirty look. “Right, _sweetheart_.”

“All right then, darling,” she shot back, grinning.

“Well, thank you so much for the advice, angelface.”

“You’re welcome, sugarlips.”

Poe headed off in the direction Rey had taken. “You’re the best, honeybunch,” he called over his shoulder.

“You know it, pookie,” she shouted back.

“Heart’s desire!”

“Light of my life!”

“Marry me, Testor!”

“In your dreams, moon jockey,” she laughed, and he saluted her sarcastically as he left the hangar.

Testor didn’t get a lot of sleep that night, but fortunately, she wasn’t held in suspense for too long. Mid-morning of the next day saw Rey, Finn, and Poe, lounging around BB-8, to all appearances giving Finn his daily lesson in basic Astromech. They looked…cuddly. Suspiciously cuddly.

Her suspicions were confirmed when Finn, having apparently gotten the translation of some phrase correct, stretched his blushing face up to receive his reward—a brief kiss on the mouth from Poe, then one from Rey.

Maybe it wasn’t so terrible to be right all the time.


	2. Search your feelings, you know it to be true

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Poe Dameron is having A Series Of Bad Days

General Organa, Poe was convinced, was trying to kill him.

It was the only explanation.

All right, a reasonable and fair man would acknowledge that perhaps General Organa _probably_ had other, higher priorities than planning the slow, calculated murder of her best pilot. Or perhaps that the reason the General kept sending him on missions with just Rey and Finn was because the three of them had a strong connection, and complementary skills, and worked really well together.

But Poe Dameron wasn’t feeling particularly reasonable, and or particularly fair, or even particularly sane, for that matter, and _General Organa was out to get him, Force damn it!_

This latest mission was the worst so far. They’d been sent undercover to set up a trade relationship with arms smugglers on Er’Kit, to establish a new source of munitions for the Resistance.

Unfortunately, ‘undercover’ meant no _Falcon_. The famous ship was far too, well, famous. Might as well show up with a bright red glowing sign over their heads saying “RESISTANCE FIGHTERS HERE” as land on Er’Kit in a scrap heap that well-known.

Even more unfortunately, literally the _only_ other ship available for the mission was an ancient Dandoran frigate. Which was originally designed for a one-pilot crew. And into which he was now crammed, along with Finn, Rey, and his massive, raging crush on the both of them.

Now, a reasonable, fair man would conclude that things were tough in the Resistance right now. He’d remember that since the destruction of the New Republic, a lot of the resources they’d had access to were gone, which was why they needed a new arms supplier in the first place. He’d admit that the frigate would blend in really well on Er’Kit, and he’d be glad they had any ship available at all.

Poe Dameron was not inclined to be a reasonable, fair man.

The frigate didn’t even have a hyperdrive, so they were actually going to have to spend more than a dozen rotations crammed into that tin can together, making their way to the planet in _sub-light speed_.

General Organa had assigned them to this mission, in this ship, as part of her long-term plan to kill him, by driving him insane. Very, very slowly.

He was absolutely certain.

It was the only explanation.

Guess how many sleeping bunks the ship had!

One.

One bunk, three people.

It was a _plot_.

Finn and Rey didn’t seem to mind sharing, somehow. Poe had managed to find space on board to stow two bedrolls, but had run into the slight problem that there wasn’t enough horizontal space anywhere on the frigate to actually _lay out_ two bedrolls. Their first sleep cycle out, he’d managed to find room enough at least to tuck himself away into in a corridor—but then Finn had gotten up in the middle of the night, and had stepped on him.

The three hours he’d spent convincing Finn—and then Rey, who’d been woken up by Finn’s freakout and had been equally horrified by Poe’s bloody nose—not to worry about it, and that he wasn’t really hurt, had not been fun. It had been enough to convince Poe, in turn, that it just…wasn’t worth it.

Well, that and the twin shaak-eyed looks he got from the two of them when the next sleep cycle arrived. It wasn’t like they were going to say anything, but they were _pouting_ , and only a monster could withstand that.

Force _damn_ General Organa. She’d engineered this whole thing, he was sure of it.

Poe was still working on how, but he _knew_.

Either way, he kicked the bedroll back into its storage compartment, forcibly thrusting down any awkward feelings spurred by their twin sunshine smiles. This cycle, they were parked on an empty, uninhabited moon orbiting an empty, uninhabited planet. They could technically have let the ship keep traveling on autopilot so they didn’t have to lose the time, but Poe didn’t trust a boat this old to navigate without running them through a black hole, or something. They could also technically have taken shifts piloting—or at least he and Rey could have—but blah blah mission briefing, something about synchronized sleep schedules. He hadn’t been listening, because Rey had been wearing The Jacket, and Finn kept fidgeting with the sleeve, and he’d gotten…distracted.

The only silver lining on this massive storm cloud now looming over his life was that although the ship was designed for one person, it was designed for that one person to be comfortable. The bunk had a generous width; you could _technically_ fit three people in one. They’d have to be _really_ comfortable with each other, but nobody would get kicked over the edge unless one of the others was a _very_ active sleeper.

Rey jumped in first, of course, eager as always. After nearly two decades of utter loneliness, she seemed determined to make up for lost time, making her an insatiable cuddler. (If a selective one. She could be as standoffish and suspicious as a Bothan with people she didn’t trust yet. But she adored Finn; and she’d pretty quickly gotten attached to Poe, too, lured in by his piloting skills and by BB-8’s devotion. Actually, now that he sat down and thought about it, they really were the only two people she was ever that openly affectionate with….weird.)

Poe glanced at Finn, expecting him to take the middle spot, but Finn stared right back at him.

“I don’t want to wake you up if I have to get up in the middle of the night again,” he explained after a moment.

Well, that made sense! That made sense, right? No way Poe could argue with _that!_ Force damn it, and Force damn General Organa, who _must have known this would happen_ , because she had set the whole thing up just to torture him! And for good measure, Force damn Finn for being so stupidly sweet and considerate.

…No, not Force damn Finn. Never that.

Poe growled helplessly inside his head, smiled weakly, and climbed carefully into the bunk, where Rey immediately glued herself to his side, wrapping one arm around his waist and tucking her nose into the corner between his neck and his shoulder.

Poe screamed internally.

The internal screaming got louder when Finn proceeded to do almost exactly the same thing, snuggling up under Poe’s arm. He leaned over Poe’s chest, dropping an awkward kiss on the corner of Rey’s mouth. She was more than half-out already, but still turned her sleepy face up to meet and awkwardly return it, catching Finn’s chin as he pulled away to nestle into Poe’s chest.

Yeah, he was going to have to talk to them about the kissing. He hadn’t said anything before now because one, it wasn’t any of his business, two, he’d been hoping they’d figure it out on their own, and three…three was because…because it was _really cute_ , okay, and he was _only mortal_.

But Rey was practically feral from growing up alone, and geeze, Finn had been raised in a _cult_. Of course they’re not going to understand those things about how beings interact with each other. And now it was going to fall to Poe to explain to these poor, oblivious kids that that kind of kissing was generally limited to romantic relationships.

…Wait.

Maybe _that_ was General Organa’s plan! Maybe she wasn’t trapping Poe alone with Rey and Finn because she knew about his feelings for them and was trying to torture him to death. Maybe she was just trying to force him to do all the heavy lifting about getting them integrated into galactic society!

And then his train of thought was broken when Finn turned over in his sleep, hooking his leg over Poe’s thigh, and short-circuiting his entire brain. For the next few minutes—or hours maybe, he lost track of time for a while—his entire mind was wound up with the galaxy-shattering awareness of the warmth of their bodies, bleeding through their clothes, pressed close against him in the dark.

Pretending was okay, right?

It had to be.

There was nothing wrong with just _pretending_ , and it’s not like either of them would ever _know_. If he just indulged his fantasies, just for a few moments, just inside his own mind. He could lie here and hold them, and pretend—pretend he was nestled up with his bond-mates. Pretend this was real.

It probably wasn’t healthy, emotionally speaking, but he wouldn’t hurt anyone but himself.

Poe pulled them both close, closed his eyes, and pretended, drifting off to sleep to the soft sound of their gentle breathing.

He woke up the next morning, and instantly wished he hadn’t. He’d apparently turned on his side at some point while he slept, and Rey had attached herself to his back like a mynock to a power cable. Meanwhile Finn was little-spooning him, tucked into the curve of his torso. And…yep, there it was.

Poe felt that he’d really done an admirable job of keeping a lid on his feelings for his friends. He was positive neither of them knew how he felt about them, and almost as sure that nobody else in the Resistance did, either.

(It was the one flaw in the General-Organa-is-trying-to-kill-me theory, actually.)

He’d been careful, was the point. He had made an impressive effort to avoid showing his feelings openly. An unrequited crush could ruin a friendship, after all. But there were certain biological reactions going on right now that would definitely give him away, if Finn woke up and felt… _that_.

So, Poe kept his eyes tight shut and tried to think of the grossest, un-sexiest things he could come up with.

He was making good progress when Rey spoiled all his hard work by moving in her sleep. She wriggled up against him, muttering something in a language Poe didn’t recognize, and in the process pressing her open mouth against Poe’s neck in a way that would probably have been extremely pleasant, under different circumstances.

For Force’s sake…oh screw it. _Screw_ it. He’d just—he’d just pretend to be asleep, and if Finn noticed anything when he woke up…

Which, if Poe wanted to flatter himself, Finn will notice. Not that he was bragging, or anything, but it was, y’know, noticeable.

Anyway! The point was, that he’d just pretend he was still asleep, and if—when—Finn noticed, it would just be ha ha, isn’t that funny, I must have had some kind of dream last cycle.

Poe had a very brief struggle with himself, which he lost. Or won, depending on your perspective. There wasn’t a spare millimeter between his body and Rey’s, but her arm was just sort of draped along his side, so he went ahead and pulled it down around his chest. Then, he wrapped a hand very carefully around Finn’s torso and tugged him gently backwards, closing the narrow gap between them.

Finn turned around in his sleep, cuddling into Poe’s chest and nuzzling the bare patch his shirt didn’t cover.

Poe whimpered.

His heart was pounding in his chest—how could Finn and Rey not _feel_ that? Poe took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. It wasn’t like he hadn’t imagined this exact situation a hundred times—or something very like it, at least.

Maker, this was so—so _nice_.

Poe thought a long string of swears in his head and gave up.

A few hours later, he was re-woken by Rey, who was (still) superglued to his back. She was mumbling his name directly into his ear, and seemed prepared to continue doing so until he answered her.

“Mmmm,” he finally managed. “What?”

“I’m _hungry_.”

He buried his face in the top of Finn’s head. “So go eat.”

“She wants you to make pancakes.” Finn’s voice was muffled by Poe’s shirt.

Poe groaned out loud, and tried to get up.

“Rey,” he said after a moment, “if you want me to make you breakfast you have to let go of my chest.”

“Can’t you make it from here?” she mumbled, and Finn burst out laughing.

It was a solid ten minutes before Poe managed to extricate himself. Despite all Rey’s protests over his impending absence, she consoled herself pretty easily by latching on to Finn instead, who wrapped his arms around her.

The two of them didn’t stagger out of the bunk until nearly half an hour later, drawn by the smell of Poe’s superb cooking. Neither of them had yet become numb to the pleasures of regular meals; Finn for the novelty of flavor and variety, Rey for the pure visceral enjoyment of a well-filled stomach.

After eating, they got underway, and the next dozen or so cycles fell into a steady routine. They flew, they ate, they found a safe parking spot for the sleep cycle and dragged Poe into the depths of misery (or the peaks of elation, depending on where his guilt-fueled emotional roller coaster was sitting at that particular moment).

They were two cycles out from Er’Kit when it all blew up in his Force-damned face.

It was the Force-damned kissing that did it, of course.

Apparently, at some point Finn had realized that he had, perhaps, been rude in his exclusion of Poe from him and Rey’s whatever-the-hell-they-thought-they-were-doing. So, that sleep cycle, when they all bunked down, after dropping the customary sleepy good-night kiss on Rey’s mouth, he favored Poe with one just like it.

“Okay! Okay, okay, okay,” Poe shouted, shooting upright and squirming his way out of the bunk. “Okay, we need to talk about the kissing, okay?”

Finn and Rey were staring at him, looking both deeply confused and clearly concerned.

“All right.” Poe sat down on the chair, and missed. Rey and Finn had the good grace not to snigger, even though he was pretty sure Rey at least was hiding a smile. He recovered his feet, his face beet red, and this time he carefully located the chair before sitting.

“So,” he began awkwardly, “the thing about the kissing, is that—you don’t—okay, the thing about the kissing.”

Wasn’t Rey supposed to be learning how not to lose her temper in her Jedi training?

Did she learn that expression from General Organa?

Maker help him, she absolutely learned that expression from General Organa.

“The thing about the kissing,” he quavered, “is that kissing, in the—in larger galactic society, kissing is— _that kind_ of kissing, I mean. Is for—for romantic relationships. For bondmates. Well, not _only_ for bondmates, of course, because that’s—ridiculous and very outdated thinking, of course, but you—you take my point.”

Now Finn and Rey were staring at each other.

Now Finn and Rey were staring at him again.

“And?” Finn asked.

“And what?” Poe asked back, floored by their lack of reaction.

“What, exactly, is your point?”

“What is my—my point is that that kind of kissing is only for romantic relationships.”

“And?”

That buzzing in the back of his brain could not possibly be normal.

“So you probably shouldn’t do it,” he said helplessly.

Now they were _frowning_ at each other.

“Why should we not do it?” Rey asked.

The buzzing had intensified to a kind of high-pitched whine.

“Because it’s for romantic relationships.” He was fairly certain he actually managed to say that out loud, which was a victory, under the circumstances.

“…And?” Finn asked again.

Was the noise actually in his head? Maybe something was wrong with the engines.

“And, you’re not in a romantic relationship,” he said, very, very slowly.

“Yes we are,” Rey said, wrinkling her nose at him.

“You what?”

They were staring at him again, and they looked…vaguely hurt?

He didn’t _think_ the noise was the engines. It sounded like if it was the engines, it would be an impending-explosion-noise, and his luck wasn’t that good.

“Since when?” he managed.

“Since…always?” Finn suggested.

Rey flopped over on her side. “I think technically since I got back from finding Master Skywalker, but always sounds good too.”

Poe leaned back in his chair, fighting the urge to cry. “Look, Finn,” he said at length, “if you two are—you shouldn’t be kissing me, then!”

“Why not?” Finn asked bluntly.

“Because—because you’re not a romantic relationship with _me!_ ”

“Yes we are,” Rey said.

“You…you what?”

“We are in a romantic relationship with you.”

“You _what?_ ”

Finn was leaning forward, looking _very_ concerned. “Poe, are you feeling okay?”

“Am I feeling—since when?”

“Since when what?”

“Since when has _who_ been in a romantic relationship with me!”

“Since…I got back…from finding Master Skywalker,” Rey said slowly, “and we both are?”

Poe jumped abruptly to his feet. “But…but we’ve never done anything, you know…romantic!”

“What are you talking about?” Rey furrowed her brow, confused. “We go on dates all the time. Remember our last mission? That beautiful restaurant on Ryloth, and then we watched the sun set together?”

“That—but—you—but that wasn’t a _date_ ,” Poe sputtered. “…Was it?”

“Of course it was,” Finn said simply. “What else would it be?”

Poe stared at the both of them, feeling the edges of his sanity fraying. “Listen,” he began carefully, “I know you two haven’t had a lot of time to adjust to galactic society yet—” (that got identical eye rolls, but he persevered) “—but romantic relationships between adults involve, involve…other things.”

Blank stares.

“…Sexual things.”

Now they were frowning.

“Are you saying that you can’t have a romantic relationship with somebody if you’re not having sex with them?” Finn asked. “Because that’s…kind of speciesist, honestly.”

Poe gaped.

“I agree with Finn,” Rey continued. “Not all species are even physically compatible. The ability to make your bodies fit together in a specific way isn’t a requirement for loving somebody.”

That wasn’t even a little bit what he’d meant!

“That’s not what I meant,” Poe said weakly.

“What then?”

“I just…because a romantic relationship is different from even a really close friendship,” Poe wavered. “It’s—you just—it’s just _different_ ,” he ended lamely, then suddenly realized, _Maker help me, I am standing here trying to_ talk my way out of _something I’ve been wishing for since I met these two! What am I_ doing!

Finn looked skeptical, Rey condescending.

“You don’t have to want sex with someone to be in love with them, Poe,” she said disdainfully. “I’m pretty sure I don’t even like sex at all. I asked Leia about it, and she said that’s totally normal and actually pretty common.”

She asked General Organa.

She _asked_ General Organa.

She asked _General Organa_.

 _Rey_ had _asked_ **_General Organa_** for _advice_ about _sex_.

Poe was awakened from his own private hell by the dim awareness that Finn was talking now. He managed to turn his brain back on in time to catch the tail end of what he was saying.

“—so because of that I don’t really have any experience. And I mean, I’m _curious_ , but I guess trying that stuff out is just not a priority, really. What we have now is nice, and we have so much else to do. Plus I don’t want Rey to feel left out if you and I do stuff that she isn’t included in.”

She started laughing. “That’s so sweet, you nerfherder,” and she bumped his shoulder gently with her forehead. “But I wouldn’t get jealous about that. It’s not leaving someone out of something if they don’t _want_ to be included. Although I wouldn’t object to an across-the-board increase in kissing.”

“That can be arranged,” Finn said mischievously, and pounced. He started kissing Rey all over her face, while she giggled and tried to squirm away, protesting, “I didn’t mean _right now!_ ”

 _I’m having a stroke_ , Poe thought weakly. _I’m floating in a bacta tank somewhere drooling and this is all a delusion my poor, fevered brain cooked up_.

Rey punched Finn gently in the chest to get his attention, motioning to Poe. He wasn’t sure what expression he was wearing, but judging by the serious concern they were both wearing at the sight, it wasn’t likely to be a great one.

“Poe…” Rey began hesitantly. “Listen, we really honestly thought you knew.” Finn was nodding earnestly next to her. “I mean, _everybody_ knows you like us. The whole Resistance knows, honestly. Or thought you did, at least. Jess was giving me grief about it before I even left to go find Master Skywalker. I guess they were just reading too much into things, though, if you didn’t even…”

She trailed off awkwardly, Finn looking sheepish as he picked up the thread. “This explains that thing on Mon Cala, at least. I thought it was just one of those cultural things that you’re always insisting we don’t understand.”

“And the thing with the bedrolls,” Rey supplied, unhelpfully.

“And the thing with the bedrolls!” Finn agreed, equally unhelpfully. “Look, it’s just—I’m sorry, Poe, I really am. We shouldn’t have—we shouldn’t have assumed.”

“I’ll straighten things out around the base when we get back,” Rey promised. “I think it’s just that you’re so friendly, people get the wrong idea. I’ll talk to Testor, she’ll help.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Poe waved his hands vaguely in front of his face. “That’s—this is—okay. We—okay. Move over.”

He flapped his hands at Rey and Finn, who shuffled over on the bunk to make room for him.

“So…” Poe began, then stopped. “Just—hang on.” He took a deep breath and ruffled his hair with both hands, then held up one finger, meeting two puzzled stares. “Are you saying you two…like me?”

“…Yes?” Finn said hesitantly after a moment.

“No, I mean, _like_ me, like me?”

“A little bit less every minute,” Rey muttered under her breath, immediately following up with “Yes, Poe, _like_ you like you, and _don’t_ start with that you-don’t-understand-what-that-means nonsense or I’ll smack you. Hard. We _thought_ you liked us back, everybody thought so, but obviously—”

“But I do!”

“You do?” Finn was wrinkling his forehead.

“ _Yes!_ ” Poe wailed.

“Then what’s the problem?”

Poe sputtered briefly before his brain caught up with his mouth. “No problem,” he said weakly.

“Good then,” Rey said decisively. “So are you coming to bed, or not?”

“Am I—” Poe took a moment to wonder whether the static noise in the back of his brain would ever go away, and then decided he didn’t care. “Yes. Yes, I am coming to bed.”

In the end, their mission was a success, in exactly no part thanks to Poe—who, on their first rotation on Er’Kit, had the stunning revelation that _holy shit, touching is allowed now_ , and that was about it for rational thought for the trip. But Rey and Finn, Force bless them, pulled the whole thing off on their own, and the journey back to base was significantly more pleasant than the journey out had been.

General Organa was very pleased by their results. She immediately assigned a delegation to arrange fulfilling the Resistance’s end of the contract they’d negotiated, with instructions that she should receive periodic updates on their status.

The first of said updates was delivered to her office by a deeply nervous aide later that cycle, after the triumphant heroes had a chance to settle back in to the base.

“Excellent,” she nodded, affixing her signature to the end of the report. “This all looks very do-able. Give them my approval,” and she handed the holopad back to the aide.

“Yes ma’am. Um.”

“Is there something else?” she asked pointedly, when the aide kept hovering in the doorway.

“Um…yes. You still have a standing instruction to be informed of any submitted Notices of Romantic Entanglement, is that correct, General?” The aide waved their holopad awkwardly. “Poe Dameron turned one in today. It’s, um…a little bit…non-standard? And very…strongly worded.”

“I see.” Leia waited for a moment, then prompted, “and?”

“Oh! I, um—thank you, General!”

The aide saluted her and made their escape, but before the door closed behind them, they heard Leia mutter: “Took him long enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LEIA SEES ALL
> 
> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL


End file.
